


BFFs Forever

by voidfins



Category: Justice League (2017)
Genre: Gen, I'll die on this hill, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mostly Fluff, No editing we die like mne, aka barry and arthur are best friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 04:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidfins/pseuds/voidfins
Summary: Barry knows Arthur is his friend no matter how grumpy he is, and this is how.





	1. Snacks

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in a folder for over a year and I just got around to finishing it. This is my first JL fanfic, and all because I adore Ezra Miller's Barry Allen.

No one, least of all Barry himself, had really expected Barry and Arthur to become best friends. Best friends by their standards, anyway, which could be considered mildly warped. Even after they had been pulled together to save the world the first time, the team was more of an uneasy alliance. Bruce, in a private conversation to Alfred that he hadn’t realized Barry had overheard, had described them as “a bunch of high schoolers from different cliques all assigned to the same group project.” Barry wondered if he realized that made him the prep. He also wondered if that made him a jock (running, lots of running) or a nerd. He decided on nerd since there were already too many jock types competing for the title (looking at you, Clark and Arthur). Although maybe Clark was the jock and Arthur was the emo edgy kid that constantly got detention.  
  
Anyway.  
  
Arthur’s general attitude of irritation put the others off. And really, Barry could see why. It was hard to deal with the massive amounts of cutting sarcasm on a daily basis. He got into it with Bruce the most, but even Diana had to summon up a fake smile every now and then. She was immortal, but that didn’t make her a saint. Even Mother Teresa would have had a hard time with Arthur.  
  
But maybe it’s because Arthur doesn’t see him as a threat (he would be more upset about that if it wasn’t so useful at times) or maybe it’s because the fish man picks on everyone pretty much equally, but it just doesn’t bother Barry that much. He’s heard worse from many, many people, and at least Arthur’s never tried to beat him up or take his lunch money or mock him because his dad is in jail. Actually, he’s not sure anyone besides Bruce knows about that last thing. Bruce definitely knows. But Bruce is not a gossip. Clark is the gossip.  
  
The rest of the team might have argued with him if he called the fearsome Aquaman his best friend out loud, so he doesn’t. But Barry knows. He knows in the same way that he knows how to sneak into abandoned buildings and make them secret hiding places. He knows because Arthur shared his snacks with him.  
  
Barry had standards. Really, he did.He also had a super fast metabolism that let him know about it when he’d expended a lot of energy without eating enough food. As a consequence, he was always on the lookout for snacks. He’d never take what was clearly someone else’s, but anything left out in the open was fair game.  
  
It had been a particularly trying mission, and Barry was tired. Tired in multiple ways. He was tired physically, because the villain they’d fought today shot freaking lightning out of his hands and he’d had to keep on the move constantly to avoid it. But he was also tired of the arguing, for once, so he had claimed an entire box of donuts for his own and retreated to the corner while Batman and Superman had a snipe-off over who got to give orders in the field. He was sulking, but he figured they told him to shut up enough that they wouldn’t be unhappy if he actually did.  
  
He also may or may not have been awake for almost forty-eight hours at this point because the lab had really definitely for sure needed those test results back ASAP. And his donuts were gone. He was considering nabbing another box of them from the table, but he really didn’t need the sugar crash later. He also didn’t feel like inserting himself into the ongoing argument. He glanced at Victor. Was he secretly watching Netflix? Probably. Diana seemed absorbed in filing her nails. Barry wondered if you needed a perfect manicure to be an Amazon, or if that was a habit she picked up after leaving Themyscira.  
  
Arthur was sitting in the corner munching on a bag of...something. Barry tilted his head trying to read the label, but it was in a writing that used symbols instead of letters and he couldn’t read it. He sat back with a sigh, foiled, only to realize that Arthur was staring right at him, still crunching on whatever it was.  
  
Then, wonder of wonders, he held it out. Barry stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was having hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep. Arthur shook the bag at him. He reached out cautiously and pulled out a small square of a papery green substance. It was flakey and dry, and smelled kind of like saltwater. No wonder Arthur seemed to like them so much. He bit a corner of it and wrinkled his nose. It kind of tasted like saltwater, too. And cooked spinach. But not in a bad way.  
  
Arthur was definitely laughing at him now. Whatever. It tasted interesting. Arthur was still holding the bag out, so he grabbed a few more pieces and concentrated on deciding whether he liked the flavor or not rather than just shoving them in his mouth as fast as possible. He’d just reached the last of his squares when he noticed that the room had fallen silent. He looked up to see both Batman and Superman staring at him (along with everyone else, but come on. Their stares were just not on the same level).  
  
“What?” he asked.  
  
“Are you eating...seaweed?” Bruce asked, nonplussed. Barry looked down at the green square and shrugged.  
  
“I guess?” That made sense. He looked at Arthur. “That’s super cliche, dude.”  
  
“So?” Arthur seemed totally unperturbed at his clicheness.  
  
“Alright,” Barry agreed. “That’s valid.”  
  
If the others thought the exchange was weird, they kept it to themselves. It turned out that Arthur had a penchant for what Barry would consider to be exotic snacks, and from then on he let Barry try them. He’d asked about it once, when they were alone for a rare moment.  
  
“It’s funny,” Arthur had told him. “Like when a baby eats a lemon. Americans have boring taste preferences.”  
  
But Barry knew the truth.


	2. Music

Barry was more observant than people gave him credit for. Mostly they just assumed that if he was always talking (he was) then he couldn’t possibly be paying attention. They forgot that his speed made the world seem slow around him most of the time, and that made watching easier. It was a survival instinct, most of all. He’d had to pay attention while he was in the foster system so he could know who to avoid and who was relatively safe.  
  
He knew when Clark had visited his mother recently, because his accent got just a bit thicker (Kansans did have accents, contrary to popular belief) and he tended to show up to meetings wearing flannel. He knew when Diana was feeling nostalgic, she ate ice cream. Like, a metric ton of ice cream. When Victor was having an existential crises he fidgeted with his many plates and screws. His favorite was when Bruce had actually gotten a decent amount (for him) of sleep, because he tended to make bad jokes that nobody knew how to deal with.  
  
Barry also knew that Arthur liked to listen to pop music.  
  
He would have pegged him for a heavy metal man, if he’d been forced to guess, but Barry happened to listen to a wide variety of whatever was available. He recognized that Meghan Trainer album cover on Arthur’s ipod when he’d taken it out of his jacket pocket to adjust something while they were flying on the Batjet (really, Bruce?). It raised so many questions. Did Arthur listen to mostly pop, or was this a fluke? Had someone else made a playlist for him? What were his opinions on Carly Rae Jepsen?  
  
He had to find answers for these very important questions. The difficulty was how to do it without getting stabbed in the throat. He was going to have to get sneaky.  
  
At first he tried humming bits of popular songs that he knew, but that didn’t last long after Victor shazammed it (with his brain, which, cool) to see what it was and then complained for a week because he couldn’t get it out of his head. Barry refused to take the blame for how catchy Beyonce was, but the rest of the team heaped it on him anyway. Bruce banned him from humming. Or whistling.  
  
So Barry resorted to even sneakier tactics. It helped that Diana and Clark didn’t listen to the radio because they said it was too depressing, Victor stuck with techno or rap, and Bruce exclusively listened to classical music. Barry had asked him if he was sure he wasn’t an alien after finding that out and got a Look. So now he’s resorted to inserting song lyrics into everyday conversations.  
  
It started innocently enough, for a conniving scheme.  
  
“Good job, Barry,” Clark said, slapping his shoulder a little harder than he probably meant to. Barry stumbled a little. “How’d you get them to follow you?” They had just finished fighting a small hoard of evil robots who, while impressively creepy, were not very bright. Barry had drawn them into an enclosed space for the others to pick off.  
  
Barry looked right up at the Man of Steel and said, straight-faced: “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”  
  
“O-kay?” Clark drawled, furrowing his eyebrows in a way that said he was confused and trying not to show it. But Barry was staring at Arthur out of the corner of his eye, and would swear he saw a smirk before it was wiped away with the usual surly expression.  
  
Worth it.

*****  
Somehow, Bruce had roped them into attending one of his (apparently famous) galas. Clark was coming anyway, on assignment from the Daily Planet, and Victor had straight up refused to be anywhere near that amount of people when he couldn’t just peace out. That left Barry, Arthur, and Diana.  
  
Diana, who was wearing something deep purple that rustled when she walked. Barry had to pick his jaw up off the floor. Bruce was more subtle, but he and the Amazon definitely had a thing going on if the subtext was anything to go by.  
  
Barry was pretty proud of his own outfit. He had been going to rent a tux, but Bruce had looked vaguely horrified and produced one from somewhere. Did he have a tux dealer? Anything was possible. His polite but acerbic butler had helped him tie the bowtie—which was not clip-on—without making fun of him once. The outfit made him look older and more like he knew what he was doing, although the real test would be a room full of Gothamites.  
  
They had all been more than vaguely surprised when Arthur showed up, especially since he looked...not respectable, because his face just did not lend itself to that, but presentable. He was wearing black pants and t-shirt (clean, as far as Barry could tell) and had somehow managed to scrounge up...a pink velvet suit jacket?  
  
Barry could see Bruce struggling not to say something and crossed his fingers, but then the man seemed to mentally shrug and move on with his life.  
  
“Hey, rad jacket,” Barry said. He was kind of jealous,actually. It didn’t look like Arthur was being choked by his own collar like he felt was happening to him.  
  
“Thanks,” Arthur said, looking down at him (did everyone on the team have to be so tall?). “Not looking so bad yourself.”  
  
“I’m so fancy,” Barry declared. Arthur narrowed his eyes and glanced up to see if Bruce and Diana were listening, but they were doing that thing where they had a normal conversation while staring longingly into each other’s eyes.  
  
“You already know,” Arthur said, and walked away.  
  
Barry about lost his mind right then and there.

*****

And so it continued. Sometimes, if other people were paying attention, Arthur wouldn’t rise to the challenge. He had an image to protect and all. But Barry was pretty used to looking like an idiot, and it was so worth it for the times when Arthur would snap back another lyric. So far no one else had figured it out.  
  
And it really should have been the last thing on his mind in their current situation, given that the villain of the day had managed to hit him with his spiky medieval looking weapon while Barry was trying to run interference so Diana could get the civilians out of the way. The blow had thrown him clear of the actual fight, thankfully, but getting accidentally stepped on was the least of his problems right now. Accelerated healing didn’t mean instantaneous, and there was still a real danger of bleeding out before he got it under control. Plus, it hurt. Barry gritted his teeth and tried to put pressure on his mangled side, but it was a bad angle. There were voices from the coms asking if he was alright, but he didn’t have the attention to spare at the moment.  
  
He startled when Arthur dropped down beside him, and had to bite off a shriek when the movement made the pain pulse for a second.  
“Shouldn’t you be helping stop the renaissance faire reject?” He managed to ask.  
  
“Nah,” Arthur said. “They’ve got it covered.” He pushed Barry’s hands away and pressed much more effectively on the wound. In an effort not to pass out, Barry tilted his head back to breathe and saw Clark throw a punch that he swore gave off actual shockwaves. It didn’t seem to phase the guy—who Barry had dubbed Maleficent, because horned helmet? Come on—because he jumped right back up and started shouting again.  
  
“Dude needs to calm down,” Arthur snorted.  
  
And maybe it was blood loss, or just him being his usual dumbass self, but the only thing Barry could think of to say was, “Yeah. I mean damn, it’s like seven a.m.”  
  
“_What did he say?_” Bruce asked, sounding bewildered, and oh right, they could hear. Whoops. And it was most definitely not seven in the morning, and if Bruce-the-goddamn-Batman had ever heard of Taylor Swift Barry would eat his hat. Or a hat, anyway.__  
  
“Oh my fucking god,” Arthur muttered under his breath, then raised his voice: “It’s fine, just a joke. Can we wrap this up already?”  
  
Bruce answered that by zapping the villain with one of his gadgets.  
  
“Are you happy now? I just lost like twenty cool points.” Arthur asked. His hands were still covering Barry’s side, but it wasn’t very effective anymore. Barry let his head fall back, too dizzy to keep it up.  
  
“You can’t lose cool points if they don’t know it’s not cool,” he mumbled. “But if that’s true, I think I’m in the negatives now.”  
  
“Come on, Barry. Keep it together. You can’t torment me if you’re unconscious.”  
  
Barry smirked. “That sounds like a challenge.”  
  
“It wasn't. That was not a challenge,” Arthur growled.  
  
“Yeah, whatever.”

_ __ _

*****

In the end, Barry’s healing factor kicked in and he stopped bleeding all over the place, but not before he got a few concerned looks and a mandated overnight stay at Wayne manor, courtesy of Bruce in full Dad Mode. It still sucked to have to take it easy for what seemed like ages (it was like a day, but he swore it felt longer than that). But it was totally worth it to see Arthur’s face when Victor finally got around to Googling the “joke” and figuring it out. And sharing it with the rest of the team.  
  
Totally worth it.


End file.
